Austrian Cultural Forum London
Opening Reception: April 30, 6 PM
On view until July 10, 2026
28 Rutland Gate
London SW7 1PQ
The Austrian Cultural Forum London is pleased to present the international multimedia exhibition Touch Nature curated by Dr Sabine Fellner. Since 2021, this exhibition series has travelled to fourteen Austrian Cultural Forums around the world, including in Berlin, Budapest, Istanbul, Rome, and New York, as well as being shown in a comprehensive presentation at the Lentos Museum in Linz, Upper Austria.
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Maria’s practice is a sustained inquiry into the choreography of belief — how it is performed, enforced, and aestheticized across religious, political, and cultural spheres. She explores the tension between transcendence and control, engaging with religious heritage as both a metaphysical force and an instrument of earthly power. Drawing on iconographic traditions, she examines the lasting impact of spiritual and ideological systems on individuals and society.
Fine Art (Mary Evans), Chelsea College - University of the Arts London, 2023
Art Photography (Anja Manfredi), Schule Friedl Kubelka Wien, with the teaching contributions by Elfie Semotan, Birke Gorm, Mirela Baciak, Josephine Pryde, Timm Rautert & others, 2019–2020
WILL-O’-THE-WISP, AG18 Gallery, Vienna, curated by Julia Harrauer
Driveway Dreams, bureau fomo, Vienna
Fragile Constructs, gezwanzig projects, Vienna
re:stART International Residency, Quartier am Hafen, Cologne (DE)
PASSAGE, accompanying program with Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl, Falckenberg Collection Deichtorhallen Hamburg (DE)
Budapest Contemporary Art Fair, Budapest (HU)
Women in Tech, Villa Mautner Jäger, Vienna
Interspace, Galeria WY, Łódź (PL)
PARALLEL VIENNA, Vienna
Soft Machine, Phileas – The Austrian Office for Contemporary Art, Vienna, curated by Jakob Lena Knebl
Anti–Anti–Anti: de-visibility, unbiased biases and friends, Angewandte Festival, Vienna, curated by Mauricio Ianes de Moraes
Get It While You Can!, Never At Home, Vienna, co-curated by Maria Belova
Search for Your People, performative action with Mariya Vasilyeva, University of Applied Arts, Vienna
A shop is a shop is a shopbeta. Conceptual store, Kunsthalle Vienna, curated by Klaus Speidel
The 8th Catholic Arts Biennial, The Verostko Center for the Arts, PA (USA)
REALITY, Kunstsalon FLUC, Vienna, curated by Anna Zwingl & Brigitte Kowanz
Bingo!, performative solo intervention, Belvedere 21, Vienna
Net Works, with Darja Shatalova, Kara Agora European Art & Research Center, online, curated by Julia Hartmann
Introduction to Japanese Haiku, 2020/21
With a warbler for a soul, it sleeps peacefully, this mountain willow.
In lantern-light My yellow Chrysanthemums Lost all their color...
All round steel
100 W x 140 H x 100 D cm each
In the series of steel sculptures, the abstraction of the language is obtained through multiple metamorphoses of translations, bringing a Word to the state of a pure line. Taking the haikus of Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson and Kobayashi Issa as foundation for the pieces, Maria Belova translates them into a sign language and then captures the transient trajectories of hands into enduring metal constructions. Performative in their nature, those sculptures are carrying within them glimpses of what traditional Japanese poetry is aiming for — say more with less and seal beauty of simple things in eternity.